Due to recent comments about the workload for Red Dead Redemption 2, former developers from Rockstar Games come forward about the company’s rigorous working conditions.
The past few days have seen Rockstar come under fire for its apparent high expectations of employees, with a recent interview between Vulture and studio co-founder of creativity Dan Houser claiming he, along with co-workers, were working “100-hour work weeks” putting the finishing touches on Red Dead Redemption 2. While Houser has attempted to diffuse the situation by clarifying his comments, former developers have come forward sharing their own experiences during their time at Rockstar, and none of them appear to be pretty.
While he isn’t working on Red Dead Redemption 2 and hasn’t worked for Rockstar since 2009, Orpheus Self-Care Entertainment co-founder and COO Job J. Stauffer claims similar practices were in place at the studio during the development of Grand Theft Auto 4. Much of the “crunch,” a term commonly thrown around at game studios as they near development deadlines, Stauffer claims, was attributed to the examples put in place by both Dan Houser and his brother, Sam.
“It’s been nearly a decade since I parted from Rockstar, but I can assure you that during the GTA IV era, it was like working with a gun to your head 7 days a week. ‘Be here Saturday & Sunday too, just in case Sam or Dan come in, they want to see everyone working as hard as them.’”
While Stauffer did state it’s been a while since he left the company, Josh Mattyasovszky, who left Rockstar more recently in 2016, echoed the same concerns while working on GTA Online, which may be considered more significant given the continuous DLC the online multiplayer continues to receive.
Seeing the responses from former developers at the studio give context to not only the reason for the recent out-pour for studios to stop overworking staff, but also makes sense as to why Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto Online are the massive, constant success they have been for the past five years. Similar stories have also surfaced following the sudden closure of Telltale Games a few weeks ago, with recently laid off employees recalling work weeks surpassing 60 or 70 hours on a regular basis without overtime pay.
With details about the size and scope of the upcoming Red Dead Redemption 2, it doesn’t appear much has changed since Stauffer and Mattyasovszky parted ways with the company. Rockstar’s release of Red Dead Redemption 2 will be one of the largest games this generation in terms of memory size, requiring over 100 GB of memory on PS4, and just under the same amount for Xbox One. The size of the game is large enough that physical copies will be releasing on two separate Blu-Ray discs, while the pre-load date is set a week ahead of launch, rather than the standard 48 hours for other pending releases.
Red Dead Redemption 2 will release on October 26th for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
